Avatar (2009)

Avatar (2009)

6/10

Starring           

Sam Worthington

Zoe Saldana

Stephen Lang

Michelle Rodriguez

Sigourney Weaver

 

Directed by James Cameron                                           

 

I for one liked the movie Avatar even though I believe the movie is not as great as many have carved it out to be. I believe Cameron has done far better films than this.

Who else can beat Cameron’s highest grossing movie Titanic, but Cameron himself with his 2009 film Avatar. Cameron has a knack for always breaking the barrier and setting new fits for others to follow and he did so here in this film also. Other than the record huge cost of production, Cameron used stereoscopic filmmaking to make the movie feel more real than it should.

This feel the movie had led to one massive cult base and that alone was the main power behind this film’s reign. The movie is written, produced and directed by Cameron himself and the massive amount of cult following is the reason this movie is now the highest grossing movie of all time. It was beaten once in 2019 by Disney’s Avenger: Endgame, but it regained the title when Disney re-released the film in 2021, during the covid pandemic.

We have people out there believing that such a place as this exist and that Cameron has had one glimpse into the future.

The movie is set in the far future of the 22^nd century, when humans are lacking new energy source due to depleted resources on earth. Humans have now been able to travel beyond the stars and have colonized a moon in the Alpha Centauri star system, Pandora. The aim is to mine a mineral called unobtanium which is the new energy resource that humans rely on. The continued mining of the moon as we humans always seem to overdo is threatening the existence of the aliens living there, they are called Na'vi. The Na’vi are 10-foot tall, blue-skinned, sapient humanoids. In other to explore Pandora scientist use avatars which are shaped as Na’vi and are controlled by a genetically matched human from a safe place.

The main character in the movie is an ex-marine named Jake (Sam Worthington) a paraplegic whose identical twin used to operate one of the avatars. Jake was to protect in his avatar form Dr. Grace (Sigourney Weaver) the head of the avatar program who is an advocate for the Na’vi and heading peaceful relations between them and humans.

Unknown to Grace Jake was given a second assignment to infiltrate the Na’vi and locate the hometree of the Na’vi which sits upon a huge deposit of unobtanium. We soon learn via Grace that the tree and the Na’vi have a neural link and destroying it will be the same as killing the Na’vi. The whole Jake trying to get more info into the Na’vi led to him meeting and falling for one of the Na’vi women Neytiri (Zoe Saldana). She is the daughter of the leader of the clan whose the focus of this movie.

When Disney bought over Fox, they gained along with their purchase this film. Cameron has already been in works with Fox to make (I think) three more Avatar movies and Disney is still game with the idea. I do not know how many more Avatar movies Cameron is going to make, but the production cost for the movies I believe are like a billion.

What we do know is that many of the cast from this film will be in the sequels what we do not know is the capacity of their presence in the sequels. Cameron for me will forever be a revolutionary filmmaker and for that reason bankrolling the new Avatar movies will definitely not be a loss for Disney.

Even I to be honest will be seeing all of them, even though I rate this one a 6/10.